Employees at AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company based in the United Kingdom (U.K.) use a system called the Global Electronic Library (GEL), to create, manage, publish, and track all Pharmaceutical Regulatory Documents. The GEL client, called GEL Explorer, was due for replacement and in 2007; AstraZeneca began reengineering the solution’s infrastructure. The new version of GEL Explorer will be delivered as a set of services based on interoperable Microsoft® technologies, including the Microsoft .NET 3.0 Framework and Windows® Communication Foundation. AstraZeneca believes that when this business-critical application is deployed, it will deliver multiple benefits—including reducing costs, enhancing drug research, increasing collaboration with external partners, and making it easier to comply with complex regulatory requirements.

Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device innovator, began an initiative to standardize its communications infrastructure to increase efficiency. The company was using a third-party product to provide users with a message waiting indicator for voice mail, but the product was unable to scale to meet the company’s needs. Medtronic also wanted to increase availability and improve privacy and security to align with federal regulations and partner requests. The company became an early adopter of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 and plans to implement Unified Messaging in a phased rollout that aligns with the standardization of its phone system. As a result, Medtronic expects it will enrich communication and collaboration and provide its work force with greater mobility. It also plans to increase system availability, reduce costs and IT administration, and improve privacy and security.

GlaxoSmithKline (NYE: GSK) is a pharmaceutical industry leader: supplying a quarter of the world's vaccines, spending over $13 million each day to research new medicines, and providing many of the world's leading prescription medicines and consumer healthcare products. It is estimated that GlaxoSmithKline makes up seven percent of the world's pharmaceutical market, and it is one of the few companies committed to researching vaccines for the World Health Organization's three priority diseases - HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Yet, an internal strategic review of their IT systems outlined a need to take a new approach to collaboration, support growing markets, and address costs. Illustrating its industry leadership, GlaxoSmithKline found its solution in pioneering Microsoft Online Services solutions.

Denmark-based Novozymes develops enzymes designed to improve industrial processes for corporations. The company, which markets more than 700 different products worldwide, has 5,000-plus employees who work in 35 global offices. Because workers are based in different locations and time zones with limited overlap in working hours, they required more effective real-time communications tools than the company’s phone and e-mail systems. In 2008, Novozymes deployed a unified communications solution based on Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007. By April 2009, 3,000 employees were using streamlined telephony, messaging, and conferencing tools. Employees say the solution has transformed the way they communicate, helping them to save hours of work weekly and to be more productive. The company also expects to save U.S.$70,000 a year on phone costs and has expanded its training capabilities.

Affymetrix, a pioneer in DNA analysis technology, needed a document management system that could accommodate its continued growth while meeting strict government regulations. It found that solution by migrating from Documentum to Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The new system has a projected payback in 10 months. Search time has been cut by 33 percent, and the solution provides long-term scalability.

Worldwide Clinical Trials (Worldwide) provides clinical research and drug trial services for companies around the globe. Approached by Microsoft, Worldwide participated in an Infrastructure & Software Optimization assessment, which analyzed the firm’s Infrastructure Optimization maturity as well as its Software Asset Management (SAM) maturity. As a result, Worldwide received an effective asset inventory, recommendations for cost savings, and guidance for its SAM program.

Life sciences researchers face the same challenge as business people: the need to collaborate quickly and easily in order to share information. Only, scientists are chasing time-to-cure rather than time-to-market. The Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation created a collaborative gene portal that enables genomics researchers everywhere to share research easily and intuitively.

A leader in in-vitro diagnostics, Roche Diagnostics manages a vast and expanding volume of molecular insights and translates it into products with high medical value for physicians and patients. Because of the complex and detailed nature of this work, Roche Diagnostics has stringent requirements for document management and storage. The company wanted to replace its existing document management system for IT projects with a new solution offering a more robust feature set. With help from Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Alegri International, Roche Diagnostics built a solution based on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007, providing comprehensive security features, workflow support for the entire document life cycle, and automated Portable Document Format (PDF) rendering and publishing. The solution is designed to comply with strict U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations.

Axcan Pharma is a privately held pharmaceutical company that specializes in the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases and disorders. Based in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, on the south shore of Montreal, Quebec, Axcan Pharma has administrative offices in the United States and in France and employs more than 500 people worldwide. Traditionally Axcan Pharma has followed a decentralized approach to technology management, and as a result, each of the three regions had very different computing environments. This made it difficult for employees to collaborate, and made desktop management a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Axcan Pharma decided to standardize its desktop environment on the Microsoft® Windows Vista™ operating system and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system.

Following an acquisition, Zentiva needed to unify the intranet systems of its offices in different locations. It developed a solution on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007, giving it a unified intranet at corporate international and multilingual regional levels. In addition to competitive pricing, Zentiva benefited from the speed of implementation and operational advantages the solution delivers for a large, international company.